Month: September 2017

Well, now. Looking at the Millennium Falcon from Lego, I just might have to change my mind about those little bricks.

I have to admit something: I never used to like Lego when I was a kid. Sure, we had some in my home, as did most of my friends, but it wasn’t like today, with all the fancy sets and cool figures. Nope. What we had was a large cardboard box with a bunch of miscellaneous pieces. I don’t think we even had a single Lego figure.

One of my friends was very good at creating things. I remember him building a Veritech fighter (from Robotech/ Macross, if you aren’t familiar with it) that actually transformed. I don’t mean it could be taken apart and reassembled in the new form, it transformed from jet to robot and back again. I was in awe, considering that my Lego abilities consisted of making squares and rectangles. If inspiration struck me, I might add wheels, thus creating a “car”. At the height of my creative powers, I was able to create what looked like a stick man out of mismatched pieces.

My first son became a big Lego fan when he was young, falling in love with Ninjago. As a result, I found myself playing with Lego, to my great surprise. My son was too young to build the sets that he was interested in, so I wound up helping him. Before I knew it, I was also watching Ninjago with him, and I found that it was actually quite good. By the time the Lego Movie came out, I was officially a Lego fan, but mostly for the various shows. I had grown to like some of the toys, but not exactly love them.

Now, we have the Millenium Falcon, and even I have to admit it is pretty sweet. With an incredible (and daunting) 7,541 pieces, and a reported assembly time of 36+ hours, I am not sure if I could successfully build it, but boy, would I like to try…

Some reviews have been mixed, with many of the poor reviews citing the exorbitant price as the main negative point, but I know Star Wars fans who would happily pay in the thousands for this set.

Check out the video below and see if you are brave enough to tackle this monster. If you are, it is still currently available through Amazon, but with limited quantities pushing the already-high price through the roof.

Just as a follow up to my previous post about Ship of Heroes, here is the new trailer shown at Pax West on September 3rd. The game is coming along nicely, and I just know I will spend hours with the character creator alone!

What do you think of the new footage? What are you most excited for in Ship of Heroes? Let me know in the comments below!

City of Heroes remains one of those games that I would very gladly play again, and play almost exclusively, if given the chance. All these years later, we still remember it fondly, and many of us still have some resentment over how it shut down.

I have always loved comics and superheroes, and when City of Heroes arrived on the scene, I jumped on it right at launch, playing daily until it was shut down 8 years later. There was a huge effort on the part of loyal fans to bring the game back, but that has never happened (rumours of private servers notwithstanding….) There are several successor games in the works, however, and the one that stands out for me right now is Ship of Heroes.

When I first heard of Ship of Heroes, I honestly thought it was a joke. I had been following the various other projects to one degree or another, but SoH appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I was the first person I know of to start sharing news of it to all the various CoH groups I was a part of. Most of the people I shared it with at that time took a similar view: it had to be a fake.

Over the past several months, however, we have seen that not only is it a legitimate game in development, but that it seems to capture the spirit of City of Heroes quite well. It is a bit early to know for sure, of course, but what I have seen and heard so far leaves me feeling pretty confident that this will become the type of game that I will play for hours at a time. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing.

I look forward to having a game that I love so much that I could lose myself in it. It has been a long time since I experienced that. It will also likely see me neglecting all my other games though, which I have mixed feelings about. Plus, these days I have much less gaming time. Still, I think it could be fun to play with my kids. My wife and I played CoH together for the longest time, and our elder son was just starting to play when it shut down. He never really got to experience how fun it could be. Maybe now, he and his brother can join me and my wife to fight crime as a family!

We’ll need more computers though!

I will also have to start writing again, as I am the type who loves to flesh out his characters with supporting fiction. I wrote two novellas and countless short stories with my characters and the character of those I played with. Although it could be akward given the setting, I am hoping I will find a way to continue the tales of Maiden Canada, the Faceless One, Doctor Valiant, and all the others.

Ship of Heroes, you can’t come out soon enough.

Are you looking forward to Ship of Heroes, or one of the other successor games? What are your favourite memories from City of Heroes?